Tag Archives: Spring

Nature in a Minute: Marsh Marigolds

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Sean K.

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The marsh marigolds are blooming! These early spring wildflowers come up in wet places and along brooks. Look for them when you are walking near shallow streams in the woods. The showy, bright yellow flowers, surrounded by green leaves, are easy to spot at this time of year.

Marsh marigolds are in the buttercup family (Ranunculacea). They look much more like buttercups than marigolds. The Latin name is Catha palustris. “Cup of the marsh” is the translation. The big, early flowers attract bees and insects to Marsh marigold aiding in pollination.

Enjoy this post by Barry Van Dusen about his visit to High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary, Shelburne on May 21, 2015 during his artist in residency at MABA, where he encountered Marsh Marigolds and other spring flowering plants.

Painted Trillium, High Ledges. Barry Van Dusen

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Our guest blogger, Julianne Mehegan, is a wonderful friend of MABA, a birder and a naturalist.

Nature in a Minute – Skunk Cabbage

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Sean K.

This is a guest blog post by Julianne Mehegan, a wonderful friend of MABA, birder, and naturalist.

Skunk cabbage is a plant with super powers. It grows in wetland areas. In winter skunk cabbage can warm the mud up to 70 degrees. The flowers push up through the warm mud and attract pollinators before any other plants come up.

A few days later the leaves appear. They are bright green and resemble cabbage. When crushed the leaves give off an unpleasant odor, like a skunk. That’s how this plant got it’s common name skunk cabbage.

In early spring as you walk in wetland areas, look for Skunk cabbage growing in the mud. Look closely at the flower and the leaves. Skunk cabbage loses its leaves every year but the plant can live up to 20 years. The scientific name is Symplocarpus foetidus. In Latin foetidus means foul smelling.

A Moment of Zen
Skunk Cabbage at the Pequit Brook at MABA

Barry Van Dusen visits Habitat and finds Skunk Cabbage, Owls, and much more

When Barry Van Dusen was MABA’s artist in residence, he wrote a nice blog post about skunk cabbage while he was at the Habitat – a Mass Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary and Education Center in Belmont Massachusetts.

Nature in a Minute – I Happen to Be Standing

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Sean K.

As our patterns of life have fragmented into a new routine, the ritual of finding solace and comfort in nature – whether it from my living room window while my girls jump on the couch (happening right now as I write), in my yard, or at nearby conservation land – seem all the more important.

“I Happen to Be Standing” from A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

“…While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm…”

When the chance allows in the morning, during the days with my kids, or in the late afternoon, I’ve been trying to spend time observing nature and taking photographs to share with you.

With the spring really starting to spring, the Red-winged Blackbird takes center stage.

Red-winged Blackbird

You will see Red-winged Blackbirds spending their breeding season in Massachusetts in places like freshwater ponds, fresh and saltwater marshes, and streams. They especially love areas with reedy plant growth. Red-winged Blackbirds will occasionally nest in forests along waterways, sedge meadows, and fallow fields at farms.

For the next few months, you will see males making dramatic displays and calls to defend their territory. Learn more by watching the video below.

Flamboyant Displays: Learn more about the territorial displays of the Red-winged Blackbirds

The song of the Red-winged Blackbird is a constant sign of spring in wetland areas. The song of a male is a creaky conk-la-ree! Listen to it in the following video.

Red-winged Blackbird call

Female Red-winged Blackbird

Photographed in May 2018. *Photo by Sean Kent*

Blending in is the goal of the female Red-winged Blackbird. She will sit still on her nest, usually built in the reeds with brownish grasslike material. It is imperative that predators overlook her and the nest. Few female Red-winged Blackbirds have arrived in Massachusetts, they usually arrive 2 to 3 weeks after the male Red-winged Blackbirds.

Red-winged Blackbird soaring away

Photos by Sean Kent

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

And remember, be safe, be well, you’re not alone, and we will meet again.

Nature in a minute…The restorative power of Spring

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Sean K.

Although it remains mysterious to science how nature calms and restores our brain, it never ceases to amaze me how a brief respite walking through a garden to watch seedlings emerge after a long winter or sauntering through a woodland and hearing the songbirds sing for the first time in many months revitalizes the spirit.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

― Mary Oliver, How I go to the Woods

The woods and meadows at the Museum of American Bird Art are alive with sounds, sights, and spirit of spring – renewal and rebirth.

The wood frogs and spotted salamanders have come and gone from the vernal pools, leaving tens of thousands of eggs that will soon hatch. The young tadpoles and salamander larvae that emerge are tenacious. In their struggle to survival and transform, their tiny bodies expend so much energy that the pond is constantly full of tiny ripples that are visible only when you slow down, look closely, and remain still. Oh, what joy these splendid little puddles in the woods bring after a long winter.

Wood frog male calling on April 1, 2019 in our main vernal pool on the main loop trail at the Museum of American Bird Art

Spotted Salamander in our main vernal pool on April 1, 2019

A wood frog playing peek-a-boo in an interior vernal pool at the Museum of American Bird Art

A few amphibian eggs on a leaf in our wildlife sanctuary on April 1, 2019. I still wondering if they hatched when we had a few good rainfalls…

While the vernal pool awakes, it’s bounty will nurture the nearby woods and the Barred Owl eagerly watches and waits…

Barred Owl watching over the vernal pool on the main loop trail. April 17, 2019

Wood frogs of our vernal pool…Nature in a minute

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Sean K.

As winter ends, low lying areas and woodland hollows fill up with snow melt and rainwater to create temporary isolated woodland ponds called vernal pools. The wildlife sanctuary at the Museum of American Bird Art has 5 vernal pools on the property with our largest vernal pool only a 5 to 10 minute walk from the museum’s parking lot. These pools provide critical breeding habitat for several amphibian and invertebrate species with life cycles that have adapted to these rich, temporary phenomena.

As winter slowly turns into spring, I eagerly anticipate walking up the first hill on the main loop trail. Before the vernal pool is visible, I know spring has arrived when I hear a characteristic “quacking” that isn’t from ducks, but from the wood frog (Rana sylvatica). When they emerge from their winter slumber, they quickly make their way to vernal pools to breed. I heard the first wood frogs in the vernal pool on March 26, 2018 and was able to take the first pictures today.

Characteristic dorsal-lateral ridges on the back of the wood frog.

This masked frog looks somewhat like a much larger spring peeper, but look for the ridges running down the sides and no pattern on the back.

Notice the characteristic eye mask right next to the eye

True to its name, it lives in forests, breeding in temporary, or vernal, pools. It attracts mates with a quacking call, and the female lays large masses of eggs.

Listen carefully for the characteristic quacking coming from the vernal pool right next to where this wood frog is sitting.

Learn even more about vernal pools in the Spring 2018 issue of Explore.

Wood Ducks…Nature in a minute

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Sean K.

As a flock of robins “swarmed” in the pine grove, bright red male cardinals sung from the tallest trees, and fairy shrimp emerged from the vernal pool, a flock six wood ducks flew into the maple, oak, and pine trees above our vernal pool on the morning of February 28. Nature can be so wonderful!

I was fortunate enough to have my camera with me and I was able to capture a few pictures and one short movie of these amazing creatures. Enjoy this brief glimpse into the hidden world of the wildlife in our sanctuary.

Watch and listen to the wood ducks chattering to one another high up in the trees.

The following are more photos of the wood ducks in the wildlife sanctuary.

Signs of Spring…Nature in a Minute

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Sean K.

Over the past weekend, male red-winged blackbirds have returned to set up and defend breeding territories, the evening displays and buzzing songs of the male woodcock have brightened up evening hikes, and flocks of robins have descended in our pine sanctuary “vacuuming” up insects emerging as the world warms and sun shines just a little bit longer each day.

This post is a short video and photo essay of one of our earliest signs of spring, the emergence of eastern skunk cabbage. Since late January, these spring sentinels have been emerging by the Pequit Brook in Canton and next to a wetland near the meadow by the museum.

Pequit Brook

As I’ve looked closer at skunk cabbage, I’ve been amazed at the diversity of color exhibited by skunk cabbage and wanted to share that with you. Enjoy the following photos and videos of skunk cabbage emerging at the Pequit Brook.

Skunk Cabbage and the Babbling Pequit Brook

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Peak Migration

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Barry V.

May 19, 2016

Marblehead Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, Marblehead

Magnolia Warbler, male, watercolor on Fluid 100 cold-press, 7″ x 10″

In New England, May is the busiest month for Spring songbird migration, and most birders agree that the 2^nd and 3^rd weeks of May are prime time. This is when the greatest numbers and variety of migrating passerines move through Massachusetts.

Two Mass Audubon properties are of particular note at this time of year. Marblehead Neck Wildlife Sanctuary and Nahant Thicket Wildlife Sanctuary are well known “migrant traps” – small plots of woodland on heavily developed peninsulas surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean.

As with most types of birding, hitting a place like this on just the right day is largely a matter of luck, but visiting during the prime weeks aforementioned gives one a pretty good chance of having a good day. The days I visited did not coincide with any spectacular “fall-outs”, but neither did they disappoint. I saw 16 species of warblers in the course of my two visits, plus a smattering of vireos, thrushes, tanagers, orioles and gnatcatchers.

Traveling to these heavily developed areas from other parts of the state, one must anticipate traffic – HEAVY traffic at certain times of the day. I realized I would need to: a.) start out pre-dawn and try to arrive at the destination before the morning traffic rush begins or b.) travel later in the morning when rush hour is tapering off. I chose the second option for Marblehead Neck, and the first for Nahant Thicket.

Arriving at the Marblehead Neck parking area at 10:15am, I claimed the last parking spot. It had been a busy morning, and some birders were just returning to their cars. They had the usual report, which was basically: “You should have been here yesterday.” However, I could hear a Blackpoll Warbler, a Magnolia Warbler and a Black-throated Green from the parking lot, so how bad could it be?

Wood Anemones

Wood Anemones are in full bloom along the Warbler Trail, and as I near the small pond at the end of the Vireo Loop, I hear the “burt-burt” calls of a Northern Rough-winged Swallow. A pair is using a snag above the pond – periodically perching and preening between bouts of aerial foraging. I seldom see Rough-wings perched, so take the time to make a quick sketch, noting that the wingtips are often held below the tail.

Rough-winged Swallow sketch - at 72 dpi

While a brilliant tanager, grosbeak or oriole can steal the show momentarily, it’s the wood warblers that are the star attraction here. On the way to Audubon Pond I begin to get a sense for which warbler species are most abundant today. Northern Parulas and Magnolia Warblers are everywhere, and Black-and-whites and Redstarts are nearly as common.

Redstart Studies, watercolor on Arches cold-press, 10″ x 13″

Sketchbook study, pencil, 5″ x 5″

At the pond, I spy a handsome male Bay-breasted Warbler foraging in a flowering oak, and a short time later spot the female. The pair keeps in close proximity to one another, and at one point I have both of them in my binocular field at once, perched only inches apart. I refine my sketches later to make careful studies of both the male and female.

Bay-breasted Warbler, female - at 72 dpi

Female Bay-breasted Warbler, watercolor in Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook, 9″ x 12″

Male Bay-breasted Warbler, watercolor in Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook, 9″ x 12″

With so many birds to sketch and all of them moving about, I content myself with pencil studies, observing with binoculars. It’s a challenging way to draw, and demands all the visual memory I can muster. With species I haven’t drawn recently, I have to re-learn the field marks – struggling to get all those stripes, spots and bars in just the right places.

Sketchbook study, 3.5″ x 5″

A female Blackburnian Warbler is a nice surprise on the Warbler Trail. No male “fire-throat” today, but the female’s throat has a lovely bright apricot color.

Soloman Seal at Marblehead Neck - at 72 dpi

Up ‘til now, the morning has been gray and overcast, but at 2 pm the sun breaks out and the day warms quickly. Birdsong tapers off and the action slows. On my way back to the parking area, I give my “warbler’s neck” a rest, and admire a patch of Solomon ’s Seal that forms an attractive pattern on the forest floor.

A Moment of Zen Skunk Cabbage at the Pequit Brook at MABA